She wondered if this was how her mother had felt. Did it explain why her mother had gone from spending her every day and every night devoting herself to Little Pete to finding any excuse she could to dump him on anyone who would take him?
The street Astrid lived on had changed in small ways since the FAYZ. Cars sat and never moved. There was never any traffic. The lawns were all getting shaggy. The flowers that Mr. Massilio two doors down always kept so beautiful were fading, limp from lack of care. Flags were up on a couple of mailboxes, waiting for a mailman who was never coming. There was an open umbrella blowing listlessly down the street, moving an inch or two at a time. A couple of houses away some wild animal, or maybe just a hungry pet, had overturned the garbage can and spilled blackened banana peels and sodden newspapers and chicken bones down the driveway.
Astrid spotted Sam pedaling furiously on his bike. He’d said he would come by to take her to the grocery store and she had been waiting for him with an uncomfortable mix of emotions. She wanted to see him. And she was nervous about it.
The kiss had definitely been a mistake.
Unless it wasn’t.
Sam threw his bike on the lawn and climbed the steps.
“Hi, Sam.” It was clear that he was upset. She lowered her legs and sat forward.
“Anna and Emma just poofed.”
“What?”
“I was standing there. I was watching them. I was holding Anna’s hand when it happened.”
Astrid rose and without really thinking about it wrapped her arms around Sam like she did when she was trying to comfort Little Pete.
But unlike Little Pete, Sam responded to her touch by awkwardly hugging her back. For a moment his face was in her hair and she heard his ragged breathing close to her ear. And it seemed like they might do it again, the kissing thing, but then, both at once, they pushed away.
“She was scared,” Sam said. “Anna, I mean. She saw Emma disappear. They were born just six minutes apart. So, first Emma. Then Anna, waiting for it. Knowing it was coming.”
“How horrible. Sam, come inside.” She glanced at her brother. He was playing his game, as usual.
Astrid led Sam to the kitchen and poured him a glass of water. He drank half of it in a single gulp.
“I have five days,” Sam fretted. “Five. Days. Not even a week.”
“You don’t know that for sure.”
“Don’t, okay? Just don’t. Don’t tell me some story about how it’s all going to be fine. It’s not going to be fine.”
“Okay,” Astrid said. “You’re right. Somehow, age fifteen is this line, and when you reach it, you poof out.”
That confirmation seemed to calm him down. He had just needed to have the truth set out clearly without evasions. It occurred to Astrid that this was a way she could help Sam, not just now, but in the future. If they had a future.
“I was avoiding it. Not thinking about it. I’d kind of convinced myself it wasn’t going to happen.” He managed a wry grin, mostly, it seemed, for her benefit. He could see his own fear reflected in her and now he was trying to tamp it down. “On the plus side, it means I don’t have to worry about how depressing it’s going to be having Thanksgiving here in the FAYZ.”
“There may be a way to beat it,” Astrid said cautiously.
He looked at her hopefully, like maybe she had an answer. She shook her head, so he said, “No one’s even looking for a way out of the FAYZ. There may be a way to escape. For all we know, there’s a big, wide-open gate in the barrier. Maybe out to sea. Maybe out in the desert or up in the national park. No one has even looked.”
Astrid resisted the urge to label that sentiment as “grasping at straws.”
Instead, she said, “If there was a way out there would be a way in. And the whole world must know what’s happened. Perdido Beach, the power plant, the highway suddenly blocked—it’s not like the world hasn’t noticed. And they have more people and more resources than we do. They must have half the scientists in the world working on it. But here we are still.”
“I know. I know all that.” He was calmer now and sat on one of the barstools that lined the kitchen counter. He ran one hand over the smooth granite surface as if appreciating the coolness of the stone. “I’ve been thinking, Astrid. What about an egg?”
“Um. I’m out of eggs.”
“No, I mean, think about an egg. The baby chicken pokes his way out of the egg, right? But if you try to break into the egg, it all comes apart.” He did a crumbling thing with his fingertips to illustrate. When she didn’t respond, he slumped and said, “It made perfect sense when I was thinking about it.”
“Actually, it does make a certain amount of sense,” she said.
He was clearly taken aback. His eyes twinkled in a way she liked, and he smiled lopsidedly. “You sound surprised,” he said.
“I am, a little. It may turn out to be an apt analogy.”
“You’re only saying ‘apt analogy’ to remind me you’re smarter than I am,” he teased.
Their eyes locked. Then both looked away, both smiling with embarrassment.
“I’m not sorry, you know,” he said. “I mean, wrong time, wrong place, and all, but I’m still not sorry.”
“You mean…”
“Yeah.”
“No, me neither,” Astrid said. “Um, it was my first time. You know, if you don’t count when I kissed Alfredo Slavin in first grade.”